the cross: where is the cross? Have you hid it? – have you taken it away? Pray, pray restore it! He will be angry. They are favourite old jewels, that I wear for his sake. You loved me once; for the sake of the old times give it me back! He will ask for it. Where is the cross? Do you see: blue sapphires, each like a little forget-me-not peering up at you. Your flowers – true blue, Philip. But the cross – I must have the cross!”
She was silent for a few minutes, and then, wildly turning to her husband, she caught his hand in hers.
“Philip,” she cried, addressing him, “it is all madness – something of the past. It was not to be, and we have each our path to follow. I heard the rumours: trouble – failure – your income swept away – dearest Ada. But you must not come to want. You will give me back the cross, though; not the forget-me-nots. Keep them, though they are withered and dry – withered and dry as our old love – something of the past. Let me see,” she said – and her eyes assumed a troubled, anxious expression – “you cannot claim me now. I am another’s – his wife. How blue the lake looks! and how plainly it mirrors the mountains! Fair blue waters – blue – true blue. If I could have died then – died when you plucked the flowers from my breast – but it was not to be. I have a duty to fulfil – a burden – a cross” – she said, dreamily – “a cross? Yes – yes – yes, the cross. You will give it me back, Philip,” she whispered, with a smile; “it lies, you see, where once your forget-me-nots lay. I cannot wear them now, but the colour is the same – true blue. But you will find them for me, those bright gems, and all will yet be well.”
She raised Sir Murray’s hand to her lips, and kissed it reverently, as she continued:
“Always true and noble, Philip. You will respect my husband for the sake of the old days. It has been like a cloud always hovering above my life: that great dread lest you should ever meet in anger. Go now – let me sleep – I am weak and weary. But remember your promise.”
Pride, misery, despair, shame, and grief, seemed to have mingled for him a cup of bitterness, forcing him to drink it there in the presence of those who were gathered round the sick woman’s couch; and it was with a step that tottered in spite of all his self-command, that when Lady Gernon loosed his hand, Sir Murray strode slowly from the room, to seek the solitude of the library, where, alone through the rest of that night, he could sit and brood upon his misery. She did not love him – she had never loved him; and he told himself that he could not stay to hear her words – to hold her hand, when her last sigh was breathed. Had not that man risen, as it were, from the dead to blast their wedding, she would have clung to him with a softened, child-like affection; but now – “how could he stay when her thoughts all seemed another’s?”
The tearful eyes of father and mother met across the bed, as Sir Murray left the room, and then as the doctor sat silent and averted of gaze by the bedside, the broken voice of the father rose, as, sinking upon his knees, he prayed long and earnestly that Heaven of its goodness would grant the renewal of life to his child, if but for a short time, that she might prove to her husband that the words he had that night heard were but the vain babblings of her distempered brain. That she might live for his, for her child’s, for her parents’ sake, and during her life, however short, sweep away the cruel mists of doubt and suspicion that clung to her hearth.
Fervent and low did that prayer sound in the silence of the sick-chamber, where all that wealth could spread in profusion was waiting to minister to the owner’s wants. But to those present it seemed as if the splendour were but a mockery; and the story of Lady Gernon’s life, well known to all, pointed ever to one great void – a void that no wealth could supply.
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